The War Against Microbes

In 1900, the average global life expectancy was about 31 years. Today, it’s 67 – an astonishingly steep improvement that is one of the most radical and consequential changes in all of human history. One of the biggest drivers of that change has been the tremendous expansion of scientific knowledge about the causes of the infectious diseases that for centuries killed countless people.

But as far as we’ve come, we still face some very daunting scientific challenges. The War Against Microbes takes viewers on an eye-opening journey through some of the most important advances in our understanding of infectious diseases, focusing on the relentless efforts of Nobel laureates to unravel the mysteries of the body’s smallest adversaries. From the dawn of bacteriology up through today’s cutting-edge research, the film shows how each generation of scientists keeps pursuing the same question: can we one day declare victory in the war against microbes?